First half goals from Romelu Lukaku and Alexis Sanchez fired Manchester United to an important victory over Swansea City.
Manchester United coasted home to a comfortable 2-0 win over Swansea City at the Old Trafford on Saturday in the Premier League.
Bringing back the big guns Alexis Sanchez and Paul Pogba into the starting line-up, Manchester United were off to a blazing start with Romelu Lukaku’s 100th Premier League goal opening the scoring as early as the fifth minute, after the Belgian was found in the box by Alexis.
The Chilean then scored his second goal for the club doubling the Red Devils’ lead after just 20 minutes, finishing expertly past the Swansea keeper, after being fed through by Jesse Lingard, who was causing all sorts of troubles to the visitors.
Manchester United continued to pile on the pressure on a hapless looking Swansea defence and had a couple of opportunities to increase their advantage before half-time with Lingard firing just wide from 20 yards out, before Sanchez missed from close range.
Carlos Carvalhal rung in the changes for Swansea at the break, throwing on Tammy Abraham and Tom Carroll to add more attacking impetus to his side. While the visitors did improve after the restart, it was Manchester United who had the first big chance when Pogba played Juan Mata in with a peach of a ball, but the Spaniard fired his volley over the bar from just five yards out.
Swansea started to get into their groove and had two great chances to come back into the game, but David De Gea pulled off two spectacular back to back saves to deny Abraham. The on-loan Chelsea forward fired a thunderous effort that seemed to be destined for the top corner, until De Gea intervened, before his first-time strike was once again denied by the Spanish international.
The Welsh outfit continued to look for an opening, but United slowly sucked the tempo out of the game, playing with their two-goal advantage without really showing the attacking verve that was on display in the opening stages of the game.
With a little over ten minutes left in the game, century man Lukaku had a great opportunity to put the game to bed, after being found by Pogba in the box. But Swansea goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski pulled off a brilliant save to stop the Belgian beast from scoring his second of the game.
The result meant Manchester United moved back into the second place in the Premier League table, after having yielded the position to Liverpool, who defeated Crystal Palace 2-1 earlier in the day.
